Panel Urges New Apopka Liquor Law Large Restaurants Could Serve Until 1 A.m.

June 17, 1987|By Selwyn Crawford of The Sentinel Staff

APOPKA — A citizens advisory committee has recommended that restaurants seating more than 100 people be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages until 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and after midnight on Sunday.

The committee also recommended that those establishments be allowed to begin selling alcohol at 7 a.m. six days a week, and at noon on Sundays. The council will decide whether to accept those recommendations at its regular meeting at 8 p.m. today at city hall.

The recommendations are different from those in an amendment to a city ordinance.

The seven-member committee was formed two weeks ago to study an ordinance to extend the hours that large restaurants can sell alcohol. Under existing city laws, those establishments can begin selling alcohol at 6 a.m. but must stop at 11:30 p.m., six days a week. Sunday sales are from 1 p.m. to midnight. Bars, lounges and restaurants seating fewer than 100 people must stop serving liquor at 11:30 p.m.

Clay Townsend, owner of Townsend's Fish House in Orlando and the new Townsend's Plantation restaurant at S.R. 436 and U.S. 441 in Apopka, requested the city allow larger restaurants to serve liquor later. Townsend wanted the longer serving hours because he said it would help restaurants that cater to banquets and other large gatherings.

The proposed ordinance reviewed by the committee called for alcohol sales hours to go from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Sunday sales would be noon to midnight. The hours would apply to restaurants with seating for at least 200 people, instead of the 100 seats recommended by the committee, which is the same as the existing ordinance.

At the committee's meeting Monday, representatives of the Errol Estates Country Club said that the late opening hour of 11 a.m. would hurt their business because they said many people like to have a drink early in the morning before going out for a round of golf. They said the late closing hour, however, did not concern them because they would be closed by that time anyway.

In addition, committee member the Rev. Scott Simmons said that he and the Rev. Jim Page, another committee member, visited Townsend's Fish House last Friday at midnight. Based on that visit, Simmons said that he would like to see a 1 a.m. shut-down time.

''From what we saw, after 1 a.m., the people that were there, were just there to drink,'' Simmons said. ''We did get served an appetizer, but they told us that was all we could get.''

Page had similar thoughts.

''After midnight, really, the place became a bar, not a restaurant,'' Page said. ''That's why I say we should cut the hours back to at least 1 a.m., if not before.''

On the first vote on the matter, the vote count was 4 to 3 in favor of 1 a.m. closing times, with city councilman and committee chairman Richard Mark casting the deciding vote. But seconds later, the three members voting against the 1 a.m. closing -- Mike Shutz, Bud Brunker and John Ricketson -- all changed their votes in a ''spirit of compromise'' making the final tally unanimous.

If the city council accepts the committee's recommendations -- as Mayor John Land said he believes it will -- the final vote would be taken at the July 1 council meeting.

The council, though, could reject the recommendations at tonight's meeting.